How hard can it be?

Contains themes of miscarriage.

Days after they discharged her from the hospital, she still lay curled in a foetal position, her mind lost within an empty chasm, searching for answers.

“Maybe it’s time to think about adoption, Jane?” 

He broached the subject every time she wept away the heartbreak of another failure. But she wasn’t ready to give up. Test results offered no explanation. Forcing herself back to work, she continued to wrestle with the enigma, turning it over and over inside her head. 

“How hard can it be, for God’s sake? Even Cathy’s managed it three times.”  

When it finally happened, it was days before she told Peter and another three months before they risked a general announcement. For the first time in her life, she withdrew from her company, trusting her staff to take care of business. She pinned a calendar to the bedroom wall. Digital devices were not enough to satisfy her physical need to control her destiny. Every evening before bed, she crossed off the previous day with a red felt-tip pen, offering a silent prayer to a God she stopped believing in when her father died, but she needed all the help she could get.

As the months passed without incident, she grew in confidence, returning to work part time. But she hadn’t expected the rush of hormones that ambushed her self control, reducing her to tears for no apparent reason. Or the bombardment of women eager to share their personal experience. 

“Twenty-four hours … twen … ty … four hours.”

 Linda Harris, from Finance, raised her voice, seizing the opportunity to gesticulate her birthing experience, and wallow in glory at the expense of the uninitiated. 

“The pain was unbelievable; phenomenal … I can’t tell you … twenty-four hours. The nurse said she’d witnessed nothing like it, and she’d been on the Ante-Natal Unit for months. In those days, there was nothing they could do. None of that ‘jab in the back’ nonsense they do now. Girls these days will never know the pain I had to cope with. And what with all those doctors and nurses huddled around your nether regions! Embarrassing or what? Mind you, by the time the doctor came to stitch me up, I was past caring. Take a tip from me, love, don’t have any.”

Unable to escape and desperate for a pee, her extraordinary belly stretched to the max, naval protruding, Jane thought this was, without exception, the most ridiculous piece of advice she had received to date. 

“Is it really that painful, Cath?” She asked her sister, who had produced her three beautiful nieces, each one a credit to their parents.

“Everyone’s different,” was all she would say, and Jane felt a newfound respect for her younger sibling.

Despite previous traumas, the pregnancy progressed without major concerns. She applied the same no-nonsense attitude she afforded every other aspect of her life, and this time, it paid off. Approaching the end of the third trimester, she felt like a train pulling into a station after the longest journey. Their guest bedroom resembled the mother and baby section of a major department store and now the decorators had finished the nursery, she looked forward to transferring everything into the baby’s room. She stroked the huge extension of herself, anticipating the squeeze of chubby knees, the smell of new life, the touch of tiny fingers grasping her own perfectly manicured hands. The hard part was over. Time to immerse herself in the joy of being a mother. To think she had almost given in to Peter’s move toward adoption. 

When the time came, Jane discovered it was indeed painful. Beyond even Linda Harris’s zealous account. Why anyone, having endured such agonies, would put themselves through it again was beyond her comprehension. Any attempt to apply a logical explanation to Cathy’s treble trauma hovered between heroic and mentally unstable. 

They discharged her from the maternity wing of the prestigious London Clinic to a constant stream of visitors laden with gifts, advice, and opinions, all of them cooing and gooing over her tiny human. She excused herself, feigning a headache, feeling like an injured star, eclipsed by an amazing understudy. 

Their long-suffering cleaner agreed to start earlier for the first week to help Jane adjust to the baby’s feeding routine. 

“Talk to Mary, will you, Peter? She’s been late twice this week and I’ve had to do the early morning feed myself. I can’t be up half the night and again first thing in the morning.”

“We agreed to be flexible, Jane … to fit in with her family. Besides, the extra couple of hours was only for the first week … remember?”

“It’s just harder than I thought. Couldn’t we extend it?”

The following morning, after another sleepless night, Mary cornered her as soon as she arrived.

“Peter asked if I could extend the extra couple of hours for another week, Jane, but it’s half-term and we'll be in Cornwall … oh, and I have to leave early today, it’s my son’s school play.”

Jane was pacing back and forth, trying to soothe her screaming baby.

“Why not leave now? You obviously can’t wait to get away?”

“Let me take him, Jane. I think you need a break.”

“Don’t tell me what I need …. What I don’t need is anyone else telling me what to do. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with my own son.”

An hour later, Jane tiptoed out of the nursery and collapsed onto her bed, to the sound of her own sobs. Mary had already left. At first sight of herself in her dressing room mirror, she thought there was someone else in the room, but her son cried out yet again, reminding her she was alone, suffocating beneath a cornucopia of self-help books, leaflets, YouTube videos, and the websites of self-proclaimed experts. Covering her ears with her hands, failed to block out the sound. 

If she only had time to sit at her desk, she would add a thick black line to her pregnancy plan, dividing pre- and post-baby. Pre-baby would include power naps and tasty prawn sandwiches, freshly prepared from the small delicatessen next to her offices; after-dinner theatre seats, and champagne accompanied weekends away to re-charge her batteries. Post-baby, her needs came second in relation to the 24/7 demands of a tiny, dependent crying machine with a defective ‘off switch’. All those enthusiastic, opinionated, self-satisfied givers of wisdom had abandoned her. Job done; they had disappeared back into their smug reality to prepare for their next unsuspecting victim. 

Even Peter deserted her, returning to his former life in the City, expecting to arrive home each night to his very own ‘Stepford Wife’. She was disappearing, muddling through each day, hostage to the feeding, burping, nappy changing demands of the omnipotent. Her toes curled at the thought of another feed. She wanted to wrench him from her painful breast and run away, back to her real-life. She longed for her father. His ability to cut through the crap, his acceptance, his love. Gut wrenching sobs wracked her body. What on earth was wrong with her? Wasn’t she biologically designed for this role? To fail at this would render her fundamentally f… ked!

“This won’t do, Jane. Look at you … it’s eleven thirty. Why aren’t you dressed?”

Her sister busied herself clearing away the mass of dirty dishes and unattended washing, changing the sheets on Jane’s bed and her nephew’s cot before vacuuming through. Her efficiency, an enviable example of the domestic goddess, both sickened and relieved Jane in equal measure. All this, having organised three children under ten, prepared a beef and vegetable casserole, and changed the baby - twice. Not to mention her daily visit to their elderly mother, who Jane had neglected to call. So, when did she become the ‘star’ of the show? When did the rebellious pain in the arse baby sister become a grown-up? She must have missed it during that period of sanity she had mistaken for her life.

“Why don’t you take a bath, Jane, and grab a couple of hours' sleep? I’m free until I pick the girls up from school.”

She held him snug in the crook of her arm, rocking back and forth where she stood, an adoring smile across her make-up free face. The tiny traitor had the nerve to respond with a stretch and a yawn, closing his eyes.

Jane breathed in the perfume of the luxurious bath oil, allowing the heat to penetrate her tense body, releasing her aching muscles, soothing her shattered nerves. She just about managed to stay awake before drying off and transferring to the sanctuary of her bedroom.

Two hours later, she woke to silence. A cup of tea and a tuna sandwich waited for her on the bedside table. Her sister was stroking her shoulder, bringing her back to consciousness. Jane opened her eyes, waking mid dream. Reaching out, she hugged Cathy close, needing the reassurance of her sister’s arms. 

“Thank you.” She said. 

Cathy returned the embrace, squeezing her tighter. 

“I have to leave in twenty minutes, Jane … phone Mary and apologise. You’re clearly not coping, and I don’t have time to take care of you and Mum.”

“I was awful to her. I doubt she’ll come back.”

“Nonsense, Jane, she’s had four kids, she knows the score. Just swallow your stubborn pride and give the woman a call. I wish to God I had a Mary in my life … and maybe call Mum at the same time?”

Jane heard the hint of bitterness in Cathy’s voice.

  “Thanks, Cath … I … I will … I’ll call them both, promise. I’m sorry to be such a pain ….”

“No-one said it would be easy, Jane.”  

Oh, but they did ... Jane thought to herself ... I did.